The Beginning of Tiberius' Career

Barbara Levick

doi:10.1017/S0009838800033656

The Beginning of Tiberius' Career

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

Barbara Levick

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Barbara Levick: Affiliation:
St. Hilda's College, Oxford

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Civilium ofnciorum rudimentis regern Archelaum Trallianos et Thessalos, varia quosque de causa, Augusto cognoscente defendit; pro Laodicenis Thyatirenis Chiis terrae motu afflictis opemque implorantibus senatum deprecatus est; Fannium Caepionem, qui cum Varrone Murena in Augustum conspiraverat, reum maiestatis apud iudices fecit et condemnavit. interque haec duplicem curam administravit, annonae quae artior inciderat, et repurgandorum tota Italia ergastulorum …

The trials of Archelaus, the Trallians, and the Thessalians are usually assigned to the period 27–23 B.C.: their position in Suetonius' account of Tiberius' early career seems to offer support to this view, though Stein connected the trial of Archelaus with Octavian's settlement of the East after Actium. Tiberius had been born only in November 42, and Gelzer more plausibly suggested that the trials occurred in Spain, where Tiberius was serving as tribunus militum during the Cantabrian war. The earthquake that Suetonius mentions in the following sentence took place in 27, and Tralles, which had been affected along with Laodicea, Thyatira, and Chios, sent an embassy to Augustus in Spain to ask for help.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , December 1971 , pp. 478 - 486

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800033656 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1971

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^{page 478 note 1} P.I.R.² A 1023. Professor G. W. Bower-sock has kindly read a version of this paper and has saved me from some gross errors; that is not to say that he concurs in the views put forward. I should also like to record my gratitude for generous editorial help; it has enabled me to make many improvements, especially in the second half of the paper.

^{page 478 note 2} Dio 51. 2.

^{page 478 note 3} R.E. x. 480.

^{page 478 note 4} Euseb. Chron. Hier., p. 164 Helm, gives the year and puts the earthquake between the death of Cornelius Gallus, itself an event of which the date is contested (see Jameson, S. A., J.R.S. lviii [1968], 79Google Scholar) and the embassy of Indi, assigned to 26; one MS. (M) gives 26 for the earthquake. Orosius 6. 21.19 says that the embassy found Augustus at Tarraco where, according to Suet. Diu. Aug. 26 (cf. Dio 53. 25), he entered upon his eighth and ninth consulships (26, 25 b.c.).

^{page 478 note 5} Agathias 2. 17; Agathias remarks that large areas of Aeolis and Ionia had been devastated, and Strabo, p. 579, associates Tralles and Laodicea in the catastrophe.

^{page 478 note 6} Augustus and the Greek World (Oxford, 1965), Appendix iii.Google Scholar

^{page 478 note 7} 2. 94.

^{page 478 note 8} Dio 53. 28.

^{page 479 note 1} Dio 54. 1.

^{page 479 note 2} Dio 57. 17.

^{page 479 note 3} Jos. A.J. 15. 105.

^{page 479 note 4} Strabo, p. 748.

^{page 479 note 5} Liv. Epit. 141.

^{page 479 note 6} Jos. A.J. 16. 270.

^{page 479 note 7} Cf. Velleius 2. 79.

^{page 479 note 8} Dio 54. 19.

^{page 479 note 9} Velleius 2. 94.

^{page 479 note 10} Suet. Tib. 11.

^{page 480 note 1} See Lewis and Short, s.v. inter II C (e). Brunt, P. A., J.R.S. li (1961), 235Google Scholar, and Swan, M., H.S.C.P. lxxi (1966), 241Google Scholar, take ‘inter haec’ in the same way as Professor Bower-sock.

^{page 480 note 2} Historia, xviii ( 1969), 219 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 480 note 3} Staatsrecht, ii.³ 571 n. 1; P.I.R.² C 951; ad Tac. Ann. 4. 27. Suetonius' distinction of cura from quaestorship is not surprising if his source was worded like Velleius and he was writing .

^{page 480 note 4} For this phrase, used here with precision, since Tiberius attained the age of eighteen on 16 November 24, see Latomus, xxv (1966), 238 f.Google Scholar

^{page 480 note 5} Dio 54. 1; Res Gestae Divi Aug. 52; for the time of year, Jameson, loc. cit. 221 f.

^{page 481 note 1} Diod. 36. 12; Cic. de Har. Resp. 20. 43, where the phrase ‘frumentaria procuratione’ is used, finding an echo in Suetonius; pro Sest. 17. 39.

^{page 481 note 2} Earlier too, one might expect, than the events that open the succeeding chapter. We may well have to put the trial of Archelaus later than the beginning of Tiberius' military service (see below, p. 483 n. 5); but if we count with Suetonius from the assumption of the toga virilis, Tiberius' tirocinium fori (see Regner, R.E. via, 1450), which was the prelude to ‘civilium officiorum rudi-menta’, must have preceded his military service. Such an arrangement would be the result of ordering by topic material that was in purely chronological order in Suetonius' source.

^{page 481 note 3} Dio, 53. 27.

^{page 482 note 1} P.I.R.² A 1023.

^{page 482 note 2} JOS. A.J. 16. 3O2; B.J. I. 516 (). For the dates, Jones, A. H. M., The Herods of Judaea (Oxford, 1938), 127Google Scholar; Bowersock, G. W., J.R.S. li (1961), 115 f.Google Scholar

^{page 482 note 3} Dio 54. 7. 2; Suet. Tib. 6. For further ties, see Bowersock, loc. cit. 112 ff.

^{page 482 note 4} Dio 57. 17; Tac. Ann. 2. 42.

^{page 482 note 5} Dio 57. 17.

^{page 483 note 1} Jos. B.J. i. 507.

^{page 483 note 2} See Magie, D., Roman Rule in Asia Minor, ii. 1286.Google Scholar

^{page 483 note 3} Strabo, p. 535; cf. Levick, B., Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor, 29 n. 5.Google Scholar

^{page 483 note 4} It was Miss Jameson who first suggested to me that the death of Amyntas may have taken place before 25; for the principle involved, see Syme, R., Klio, xxvii (1934), 130.Google Scholar Note also that the grant of the title ‘friend and ally’ to Polemo I of Pontus is recorded by Dio under the year 26 (53. 25; cf. Schmitthenner, W., Historia, xi [1962], 49 f., n. 43Google Scholar). That could be a reaction to Amyntas' death. Coins of Amyntas, if dated by regnal year IB ═ 12, do not guarantee his survival beyond 27.

^{page 483 note 5} It is tempting to suggest the year 27. That would mean that the first events mentioned in chapters 7–10 of Suetonius' biography were themselves in chronological sequence; but the temptation must be resisted. Both Tiberius' extreme youth and the long interval which would have to elapse between the death of Amyntas and the creation of the Galatian province make 27 unlikely.

^{page 483 note 6} Strabo, p. 558.

^{page 483 note 7} Magie, , Roman Rule, ii. 1234Google Scholar, with reference to Strabo, pp. 558, 796; Plut. Ant. 3; Dio 39. 57 f.; Liv. Epit. 105; Val. Max. 9. 1. ext. 6.

^{page 483 note 8} Cic. ad Q.Fr. 3. 1. 15, 2. 1.

^{page 483 note 9} Ad Fam. 13. 64. Augustan coins of Nysa mention a Chaeremon (Rev. suisse de Num. xiv [1908], 11, no. 2Google Scholar).

^{page 484 note 1} Cic. pro Flacco 52; Strabo, p. 649.

^{page 484 note 2} Livy 37. 55. 7.

^{page 484 note 3} Pol. 27. 3. 1 ff.; Livy 42. 19. 7, 45. 1 ff.

^{page 484 note 4} Cic. 2 Verr. 1. 28. 71 ff.; Lolling, H. G., Ath. Mitt, ix (1884), 30.Google Scholar

^{page 484 note 5} Crassus: Cic. de Or. 3. 74; Nero: see P.I.R. ² D 129; generally: Quint. 12. 6; but cf. Cic. ad Att. 3. 17. 1, with Wiseman, T. P., H.S.C.P. lxxiv (1970), 207.Google Scholar

^{page 484 note 6} Inscr. Ital. xiii. 1, p. 151: between Nones and Ides of June.

^{page 485 note 1} Strabo, pp. 556 and 649.

^{page 485 note 2} Cf. Dio 54. 9.

^{page 485 note 3} See Millar, F. G. B., ‘Emperors at Work’, J.R.S. lvii (1967) 9 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 485 note 4} Strabo, p. 579; Broughton, T. R. S., ‘Some non-colonial Coloni of Augustus’, T.A.P.A. lxvi (1935), 21.Google Scholar Cf. αύτίκα δή µάλα in Agathias, if anything is to be made of that overworked phrase.

^{page 485 note 5} We should date the Trallian embassy to 26 rather than to 25. Can we adduce another feature of Agathias’ narrative? Chaeremon approached Augustus in Cantabria, and the war in Cantabria belongs to 26 rather than to 25 (Syme, R., A.J.P. lv [1934], 303Google Scholar); in any case Augustus took no active part in the second year's operations (id. ib. 310). But both parts of the war could loosely be called ‘Cantabrian’: see Schmitthenner, W., Hist. xi (1962), 59 n. 28, 61 n. 36.Google Scholar The hazardous journey would not have been undertaken in the winter season. Probably Chaeremon set out in the spring of 26.

^{page 486 note 1} It may be relevant that Agathias calls Chaeremon , perhaps with reference to a distinct social class (cf. : Herod. 7. 155; Thuc. 8. 21). can have a pejorative sense and itself was hardly a term used technically of the landowning classes. It is a poetical word, and Agathias was fond of such (Cameron, A., Agathias [Oxford, 1970], 31 f.Google Scholar); his source here was the epic poet Christodorus, who wrote a history of Tralies (Bücheier, F., Klein. Sehr, ii [Osnabrück, 1965]Google Scholar, 453 ═ Rhein. Mus. xxxvii [1882], 331 f.). For used in a group of Syrian epigrams in connection with substantial property, see Robert, L., Rev. de Phil, xxxi (1957)Google Scholar, 20 ═ Opera Minora Selecta (Amsterdam, 1969Google Scholar), 386 n. 5: he cites Käibel, Epigr. gr. 446 (fourth century A.D.), 452 (third), 453. Certainly when Chaeremon gave help to the Roman armies at the time of the Mithridatic War it was in the form of grain supplies (S.I.G.³ 741) and it was land worth 2,000 talents that Caesar confiscated after the battle of Pharsalus (Strabo, p. 649). (I am indebted to Miss L. H. Jeffery for help with this note.)

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